Indigenous Science: shell middens and fish traps

Educational value

• The article provides information useful for teachers in planning their implementation of the curriculum. It is relevant to numerous content descriptions across a range of year levels, including the content description in the year 7 history depth study Investigating the ancient past that refers to the nature of the sources for ancient Australia and what they reveal about Australia's past in the ancient period (approximately 60,000 BCE to c650 CE), such as the use of resources. Shell middens are a particularly valuable source.
• It is also relevant to content descriptions in years 1 and 4 geography about the ways that the activities located in a place create its distinctive features and about the resources provided by the environment. It may be of some use for year 7 science content description about how interactions between organisms can be described in terms of food chains and food webs; in this case Aboriginal people were the top predators in the food chain.
• The resource is especially valuable for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures cross-curriculum priority. It is particularly supportive of the priority's organising idea that Aboriginal peoples' ways of life are uniquely expressed through ways of being, knowing, thinking and doing. The article refers to the people reading the seasonal signs to know when the various shellfish were at their best. Knowledge like this was built up over generations of careful observation.

Year level

1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7

Topics Aboriginal history Land custodianship Environmental management Environmental influences Sustainable development Archaeology Historians Migration Attitudes Biodiversity Bush food Nutrition Symbiosis Natural resources Environmental stewardship Food webs Environmental impact Seafood Fishing Torres Strait Islander history Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples Historical sources Archaeologists